Gov. Charlie Baker optimistic on north-south rail, but not Springfield-to-Boston train service (video)

Expanding passenger rail service between New Haven and Springfield is looking good. But expanding service from Boston to Springfield is far less certain, Gov. Charlie Baker said in a meeting with editors and reporters from The Republican/MassLive.com on Friday.

Baker said he has been having "very positive" conversations with Connecticut officials about running trains along the north-south corridor from New Haven to Springfield and then to Greenfield.

Baker said he expects to have an announcement by July on north-south rail. "I'm optimistic this is something we could turn into a pretty regular loop that would run with a reasonable amount of frequency," Baker said.

The CTrail project, which would run regular rail service from New Haven to Springfield, is expected to start service in May.

On east-west rail from Boston to Springfield, however, Baker said the future is less certain.

"The goal is to do a full blown study on this, which involves a lot of elements," Baker said.

Baker said the Department of Transportation expects to select a vendor to conduct the study in June, and a study would likely take 12 to 15 months.

Baker said since the Springfield to Worcester to Boston line runs active freight service today, a separate line would probably have to be built for passenger rail.

With President Donald Trump proposing a major infrastructure bill, there is the potential for a Springfield to Boston rail project to get federal funding.

But overall, Baker sounded pessimistic about the idea. He said the Trump administration is proposing that the U.S. government pay 20 percent of a project's cost, a reversal from the historic policy, which has been for the U.S. government to pay 80 percent when it gives infrastructure grants. He said there are also "some pretty interesting rules" in Trump's proposal around what federal money could be spent on.

Baker said he met with many Capitol Hill insiders while in Washington, D.C for a National Governors Association meeting, and he came away skeptical that Congress could get anything major done.

"Many of us came away thinking that there's not a lot of agreement among those folks on much of anything," Baker said. "It's possible they could end up getting through the rest of the session without doing anything significant on infrastructure, which from everyone's point of view would be unfortunate."